The mood in the hearing room noticeably shifted as Graham began peppering Jackson questions about her faith and how faithful she is.

When Graham asked Jackson to rate how religious she is on a scale of 1 to 10,  some people’s heads shot up, while others looked around, appearing to express shock at the tone of questioning.

Booker, for instance, looked over at Graham with an incredulous look on his face.

Graham questioned Jackson on her faith and religious beliefs during the hearing Tuesday.

Jackson, who seemed to hesitate for a moment, told Graham she is nondenominational after he asked her directly what faith she followed.

"Personally my faith is very important, but as you know there is no religious test in the Constitution under Article 6, and it's very important to set aside one's personal views about things in the role of a judge," she said.

Graham was undeterred.

"How faithful are you in terms of a religion? Do you attend church regularly?"

Jackson replied: "I'm reluctant to talk about faith in this way because I want to be mindful of the need of public to have confidence in my ability to separate out my personal views."

Leahy asked Jackson about her ability to build consensus on “issues that break along ideological lines.”

Jackson responded by saying that it was “very important to try to find common ground” with her colleagues on all issues, that she admired Breyer’s ability to do so, and that she had gained valuable experience doing so during her time on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Anticipating Republican questions, Leahy asked Jackson to respond to accusations she's "soft on crime" or even "anti-law enforcement" because she worked as a public defender.

"As someone who has had family members on patrol and in the line of fire, I care deeply about public safety," said Jackson, who noted that her brother patrolled the streets of Baltimore and had two uncles in law enforcement. "I know what it's like to have loved ones who go off to protect and to serve and the fear of not knowing whether or not they're going to come home again, because of crime in the community."

She continued, "Crime and the effects on the community and the need for law enforcement. Those are not abstract concepts or political slogans to me."

At the same time, Jackson said she cares deeply about the Constitution and ensuring that people who are accused of committing crimes are treated fairly.

"In order for us to have a functioning society, we have to have people being held accountable for committing crimes, but we have to do so fairly under our Constitution, as a judge who has to decide how to handle these cases," she said. "I know it's important to have arguments from both sides, to have competent counsel, and it doesn't mean that lawyers condone the behavior of their clients."

Grassley asked Jackson about a pivotal ruling she handed down regarding illegal immigration.

In 2019, Jackson temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plan to expand fast-track deportations of undocumented people. The Trump administration plan sought to expand the rule to apply to people who had been in the U.S. for up to two years. Previously, the rule allowed fast-track deportations only for people within 100 miles of the border and who had been in the country for up to 14 days.

Jackson, as a federal judge, issued an injunction temporarily blocking the new rule. Grassley, in his questioning, said the new rule had been explicitly deemed by Congress to be “unreviewable.”

Jackson defended her decision to issue that injunction, citing precedents in both immigration and administrative law to explain that her ruling was valid on procedural grounds.

“Importantly, the challenge was not about the actual determination, the challenge was about the procedures the agency understood to make that determination,” Jackson explained.

“Even when Congress gives great discretion” to a government agency like the Department of Homeland Security, she added, “procedural requirements may still apply."

“There are also legally established consequences if an agency does not adhere to these procedural requirements when it determines the policies that it imposes,” Jackson said. 

Jackson told Grassley she supports the goal of diversity in schools and society, after describing her parents' experience attending segregated schools.

Grassley, in his questioning, pointed to a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that Jackson had used in an earlier speech.

Jackson quoted King as saying “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

"In that speech I talked about my background, my upbringing, the fact my parents when they were growing up in Miami, Florida, attended and had to attend racially segregated schools because by law when they were young, white children and black children were not allowed to go to school together," said Jackson.

Jackson said she had attended a school that was "completely different."

"I went to a diverse, public junior high school, high school, elementary school," she said. "The fact we had come that far was to me a testament to the hope and promise of this country. The greatness of America that in one generation, we could go from racially segregated schools in Florida to me as the first Floridian to ever be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States."

Jackson will look to court precedent when looking to define fundamental rights, she said in response to a question from Sen. Chuck Grassley.

In particular, Grassley asked about free speech protections for protesters of differing political parties, as well as the right to bear arms outlined in the Second Amendment.

"The Supreme Court has established that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right," Jackson said.

Jackson described her time on the U.S. Sentencing Commission in response to a question from Durbin as it pertains to finding consensus on an issue such as prison sentences for cocaine.

"At the time I was on the commission we had a range of people," said Jackson. " Judges from different backgrounds who had different views about the criminal justice system, but we had a directive from Congress in so far as Congress had changed the penalties as you mention as it relates to crack cocaine."

"We reached unanimous agreement the change in the guidelines necessitated by the change in the statute should apply retroactively to people who had been convicted and sentenced under the prior regime and then congress followed shortly thereafter by making it a statutory change to apply changes retroactively," she continued.

Grassley, a proponent of allowing cameras in Supreme Court proceedings and having them televised, asked Jackson for her view on this scenario.

"I would want to discuss with the other justices their views and understand all of the various potential issues related to cameras in the courtroom before I took a position on it," she said.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the audio of Supreme Court proceedings has been livestreamed.